Falcon Report

Kirk Cousins Trying to Salvage Career, Break from Atlanta Falcons

Kirk Cousins took to the airwaves this week to explain his drop-off at the tail end of the Atlanta Falcons season.

Keith Cummings

Kirk Cousins threw nine interceptions against one touchdown in what were likely his last snaps with the Atlanta Falcons.
Kirk Cousins threw nine interceptions against one touchdown in what were likely his last snaps with the Atlanta Falcons. / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
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For all the diplomacy Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot recently displayed over the combustible situation with Kirk Cousins; it didn't take long for the veteran signal caller to ignite controversy.

On Tuesday, Cousins joined the parade of players who feel substantially more at ease to let their guard down during the yearly media feeding frenzy Super Bowl week serves up. So as far as juicy titbits to assembled microphones go - Cousins probably wins the prize for immediately causing the most friction with his current employers.

Despite crickets coming from both Cousins and the Falcons top brass at the time, the alleged shoulder injury the 36-year-old passer suffered in Week 10 appeared to make life pretty difficult as Cousins and the Falcons fizzled down the stretch.

"Against the Saints, [I] got hit pretty good in my right shoulder and elbow and from there kind of dealing with that was something I was working through and just never really could get it to where I wanted it," Cousins said during time spent with the NFL Network.

It's probably best to not fool yourself into a workable scenario whereby Cousins somehow sticks around to be a very rich accessory on the sidelines for the 2025 Falcons. This isn't Madden. Team chemistry matters, and Cousins just proved he can be a problem.

Without any question, both sides are now going for a quickie divorce, albeit by using different tactics to get what they really want.

For example, if Morris and Fontenot would lay their chips more openly on the table, it's pretty safe to say they know they're going to have to release Cousins and get on with things.

Or course there's that nasty landmine lurking in plain sight, a prohibitive $65-million salary-cap hit the Falcons are hoping someone will bail them out from under. They can save up to $27.5 million this season in a trade, but face it, no one is picking up Cousins’s salary this season (other than the Falcons).

Putting most of the blame on an untimely injury makes sense on a personal level, especially if Cousins wants to circumnavigate the growing perception that he's simply washed up as a bona fide starting quarterback in the NFL. 

Cutting through the waffle of yesterday; the truth is that Cousins wants to play out the remainder of his career - rather than standing around watching.

Therefore, that means he's going to create the necessary leverage he requires to restore the luster to his damaged brand. In order for Cousins to look better than he did when he imploded into a tsunami of turnovers, it inevitably means things are going to get increasingly messy about his mysterious injuries.

We typically value toughness and grit in players willing to play through pain. The question remains, why did Morris wait so long to pull the plug on an obviously faltering starter?

In the meantime, we can make no bones about the fact that Cousins is leaping into a positive sales pitch to show other teams that he's still a safe pair of hands. 

"I'm no good to the Falcons, I'm no good to a team if I'm not feeling really good," Cousins insisted on Tuesday. "And so that's really where my focus has been through January and February. Now that the season has wound down I'm really taking all the time I can to get my body feeling really good."

For the most part, Cousins still holds the high ground, his compelling insistence being that he kept playing through an injury which everybody kept tucked under their hats. Furthermore, Cousins remained a dutiful teammate when he was benched, his behavior toward new starter Michael Penix Jr. was as professional as it was selfless.

Just recently star running back Bijan Robinson even spoke about how his respect for Cousins had only grown after the quarterback got the news he was benched.

All those accreditations look good for Cousins, particularly as he now attempts to come clean about what went wrong. It's also worth remembering that Cousins's real safety net is to simply button his lip and become one of the highest paid backups in the league. He’s due an extra $10-million on March 12th if he’s still with the Falcons. 

The clock is ticking in Atlanta, but Cousins gave the best indication yet this week that he has no plans on returning to the Falcons. 

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Keith Cummings
KEITH CUMMINGS